Americans grew wealthier, traveled more, and demanded more exotic cuisine. Yet there were few trained restaurant cooks. Convenience food – in the guise of continental dishes (as in pineapple = Hawaiian) – offered the solution for many restaurants as the decade wore on. In other developments, old restaurant formats such as automats, diners, cafeterias, and drive-ins disappeared or shrank drastically in numbers. Fast food and dinner house chains, relatively scarce at the beginning of the decade, flourished by its end. Black Americans began to make headway in gaining civil rights in restaurants. By the middle of the decade signs of the counterculture could be seen here and there.

Highlights

1960 New Armour & Co. boiling bags filled with beef burgundy, lobster Newburg, and coq au vin mean that “Every drive-in can now be a Twenty-One Club, every restaurant a Maxim’s de Paris,” according to a trade mag. – In Columbus Ohio the opening of the Kahiki adds to the Polynesian restaurant boom, while in NYC La Fonda del Sol opens, offering exotica such as Empanadas, Grilled Peruvian Tidbits on Skewers, and Papaya Filled with Fresh Fruits.

1962 A café in Sioux Falls announces “microwave cooking,” while in New York’s Time Square a restaurant opens featuring frozen entrees which the customer is to pop into a tabletop microwave. – A new product for restaurants comes on the market: instant mouthwash in a sealed paper cup to be presented to customers after they eat heavily spiced dishes.

1964 Continental and Polynesian restaurants find they must add steak to their offerings. – Kelly’s steak house in Sherman Oaks announces it sold approximately 400,000 pounds of steak in the past year.

1965Maxwell’s Plum opens in NYC with an eclectic menu that ranges from Pâté and Escargots Bourguignonne to a Foot-long Hot Dog with Chili. Rumors spread of a naked woman seen walking casually through the dining room. — Extra-thick Frymaster Jet Griddles are marketed to keep cooking temperatures stable even when “completely loaded with frozen food.” – Aggressively cheerful California-style coffee shops, which combine the features of drive-ins, coffee shops, dinner houses, and cocktail bars, spread across the country.

1966 After touring the US, a wine expert says that he believes 99% of licensed restaurants have no interest in promoting wine. He reports that not once did a server ask if he’d like wine with his dinner. Instead they asked if he wanted a cocktail, followed by “Coffee now or later?” – Alice Brock opens The Back Room in Stockbridge MA which will be made famous by Arlo Guthrie as “Alice’s Restaurant.”

1967 Students at the University of Washington, Seattle, boycott Aggie’s Restaurant because they believe it discriminates against students, especially if they are dressed in “funny clothes,” following an incident involving a long-haired “fringie.” – The adoption of frozen convenience foods increases in restaurants after passage of the Minimum Wage Act which raises kitchen workers’ pay.

1968 Countering the fast food trend, the menu at the Trident in Sausalito advises its patrons to be patient: “Welcome to Our Space. Positive energy projection is the trip. … Care in the preparation of food requires time especially if we’re busy! So please take a deep breath, relax and dig on the love & artistry about you. May all our offerings please you. Peace within you.” – In Fayetteville, Arkansas, a diner declares he is tired of an “unrelieved diet of chili dogs and waffle fries” and bemoans the lack of any “quality dining establishments.”

1969 The Scarlet Monk in Oakland advertises a “Topless Luncheon” Monday through Friday. – In Chicago, menu language has become more sophisticated, according to linguistic researchers. They report: “Du jour is an accepted form on menus and appears more often than of the day. Anything – pie, potatoes, sherbet, cake, pudding – can be du jour (or de jour, du jor, dujour, and du-jour), and the Florentine Room even has … potato del giorno.”

I’m looking to see if anyone remembers a restaurant called Ruby’s Truck Stop on 17th State, in Milwaukee, WI. I think it was back in 1975 thru 1977. Ruby and Big Dave owned it. If anyone has any pictures of this restaurant or remembers it would you please let me know? Thank you.

Bob Frisk was my father. He owned Frisky’s Drive In and was an artist. We served homemade pizzas, guinea grinders, tenderloins, onion rings and more – fondly remembered by many East Siders from the 60’s and early 70’s!

I’M TRYING TO RECALL WHAT I THINK WAS A FRENCH RESTAURANT IN DOWNTOWN D.C. DURING THE 1970S. ALL OF THE POWER BROKERS FREQUENTED IT. I RECALL THERE WAS ONE LEVEL AS YOU ENTERED AND THEN ANOTHER LOWER LEVEL. ANYONE HAVE ANY THOUGHTS?

Does anyone remember a luncheon place at the State Street Marshall Field’s where the waitresses brought your order on a tray. You filled out your order by checking off what you wanted on a little order form with a little pencil? I remember the restaurant as having a garden patio look. I think that was the name too. This would have been in the late ’50’s or possibly the early ’60’s. I’d really like to hear from you if you remember it because my best childhood friend has no recollection of it. I swear I remember having lunch there with my mother when I was a little girl. Shelby

I do not know if it was the same restaurant, but I ate at one at Marshall Field’s in the mid 70’s where you filled out your order on a piece of paper and check marked what you wanted. There were a number of choices for each category – entree and dessert as I recall – and the menu changed daily. I worked at the U.S. Court House at the time and was a regular there and at Berghoff’s – which used to have a very reasonable special lunch menu.

The restaurant was indeed in Field’s. It was called the Verandah (sp).
One of the menu items was an open-face sandwich composed of rye bread, iceberg lettuce, swiss cheese, roast turkey and 1000 Island dressing.

Yes, it was down the street from where I lived and several of us went there before a sweetheart dance at Westside in the early 70’s. Very fancy and good. The daughter of the owner ended up being my Freshman college room mate. Wondering where she is now…

Speaking of ’60’s cuisine…
I need a restaurant that makes a ‘reheated’ version of Coq au Vin. It tastes soooo much better when dish is allowed to rest overnight and the sauce has a chance to re-moisten the chicken.

Pan American Airways had this entree from Maxim’s of Paris ….fabulous. Who knew anyone could be nostalic for airline food!

You may be thinking of Ida de France, run by the Swiss-born Chiesi brothers, Alexander and Peter. Peter Chiesi, who founded the Hapsburg House at 313 East 55th Street, joined Alexander as chef at Ida de France in 1968. In 1970 Craig Claiborne reviewed the restaurant, praising its seafood crepes with Mornay sauce and watercress soup. He said it had a bistro atmosphere, with raspberry walls, posters, paintings, and plaster busts. It may have closed that year, when Peter died. In 1974 Szechuan East is listed at that address. Pig Heaven opened in 1984.

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